Monster
by Jeanniebird
Summary: In her short life, Marrow has already witnessed the cruelty of life several times. Bitterness is threatening to consume her until she has an encounter which may changer her life forever. Angel might be the only one who is able to change her dark future...


_This oneshot stars the tragic and often forgotten fate of the Morlock-girl Sarah aka Marrow. The story is based on a scene in X-Men #74 although there are some slight changes. It was written for a friend of mine who always complained that there aren't any stories about Marrow and the idea didn't leave me alone. Again, I want to thank my wonderful beta Wolvierules88, who helped me with her corrections and suggestions, I couldn't have completed this story without her._

_Disclaimer: I don't own Marrow, Angel, Abomination or any other character you recognize, Marvel does. I just lease them, but I promise I'll give them back._

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"Show him what kind of monster you truly are. Show it to him with pride," Abomination ordered her, and his rotten breath nearly made Sarah heave. She tried to turn her face away from the angel standing near them, the angel who was getting ready to launch himself at the green colossus that held her. She'd rather let Abomination's claws dig themselves even deeper into her face and bear the pain instead of allowing that angel to see her bone-disfigured face. "I'm sorry…Please, don't look at me. _Run_, I will distract him as long as I can!" she whispered and closed her eyes. At least she would die protecting the purest creature she had ever seen.

She took comfort in the fact that she would die for Angel, the man she had worshipped since childhood. He smelled like sunlight and stood for freedom. Exactly the things she had always fought for, in vain.

"She isn't a monster, but a wonderful, brave, young woman. She saved my life and opened my eyes. She is the _most beautiful_person there is." These words cut into Sarah's consciousness like a knife, and for a moment severed her link to reality. Time seemed to stand still. Her senses suddenly appeared to be unnaturally strong and she could hear the heartbeats of her two hearts in her ears.

_Beautiful_. Angel, the pure angel, who smelled like the sun, had called her _beautiful_. No one had ever done that before, not even Callisto, who had taught her everything she knew. The woman who had shown her how to survive in the Morlock tunnels and how to win the hard and endless fight in Mikhail Rasputin's Hilldemension. She had been her protector, and to a certain degree also her adoptive mother. But not even Cal had ever called her that.

Life had always been hard on Sarah and in return she had become hard. When she was just a little girl, life had shown her for the first time how cruel it could be. A group of murderers, calling themselves Marauders had entered the sewers and killed every Morlock they were able to find. And the found a lot. The sewers had been their only shelter, the place where they thought themselves save. 'They' were mutants like Marrow, whose mutation was obvious for everyone. They were despised and hunted by humans, if they ever ventured to the surface.

The small girl who had bones sticking out of her body had watched her friends, family and playmates being butchered in front of her eyes. Harpoon, Arclight; Scalphunter, Blockbuster, Sabretoothe and the other Marauders hadn't shown any mercy; they massacred men, women and even children.

Sarah survived thanks to the man who had originally assembled the Marauders in the first place. A man called Remy LeBeau. He hadn't known the true purpose of the Marauders until it was too late. He was shocked about the massacre he was partly responsible for. That was the reason he'd hidden the small Morlock girl and prevented the murdering Sabretooth form butchering her as well.

Even at that young age Marrow was taught that she was a monster, not worthy to live, and that she had to fight for every second of her existence. The genocide instigated by Mr. Sinister was proof of that. She had to stand up for herself because nobody else would ever do that for a girl with such monstrous disfigurements of exposed bone.

Sarah was literally thrown back into reality, when the green creature which still held her in its claws threw her against the cold wall of the underground tunnel. Abomination raised the other arm and hit the surprised Warren, who had watched as the monster had thrown her through the tunnel like a rag doll. "She doesn't need your pity, it's an insult! Look, little one, we are very much alike, you and I, and this is your first lesson," said the green titan turning to Marrow.

Sarah groaned quietly as she tried to stand up again. She was used to pain. It had been her constant companion since the day her mutation had first manifested. Every time a bone broke through her skin it destroyed nerves and tissue. Every night she laid there in silent agony, excruciating and endless. She was used to pain unlike any other.

As the mutant looked up she was shocked so see that Abomination held Warren in a tight grip and slammed him on the ground brutally. As the green, scale-covered giant became aware of her shocked stare he lifted the winged mutant to slam his fist into Warren's stomach. "Don't look so shocked, little one. We have so much in common. We are both abominations, the world doesn't want us. But we don't even need that. The true power lies within the darkness. It protects us. Only through our ugliness do we have the means to survive. Be honest, you have experienced that yourself."

Marrow still stared at the cruel spectacle in front of her. She was torn between the wish to help the idol of her childhood and the truth she saw in the words of the scaled behemoth. She didn't grow up in this world but a pocket universe created by Mikhail Rasputin, Colossus insane brother. He had brought the Morlocks there after a second attempted genocide as the Morlock tunnels were flooded.

For fifteen years she had lived at a place called 'the Hill' and she had to fight for her life. The goal was simple: Get to the top of the mountain to Mikhail. At some point she had stopped trying to make sense of a life like that. She had simply fought the others. Survival of the fittest. The difference was that it was impossible to die at that place except of old age. Colossus' brother wanted to select the best fighters among them and train them to be a battle-tried group, the Gene Nation.

At this place she had learned how to fight. She learned how she could use her exaggerated bone growth in the daily practice battles. The darkness had been her friend there, it was her cover for secret attacks and sometimes even shelter for a short rest. Now that she thought about it, the darkness had always been her friend, even before Mikhail and the mutant massacre. Every time she had trusted a surface dweller her hopes had been disappointed.

She remembered the fight between Callisto and Storm for the leadership of the Morlocks. How happy and over-joyed she had been as the Windrider had won that battle. Storm had been the white knight with even whiter hair. Beautiful and graceful. The complete opposite to the dirty and tattered Callisto.

Sarah had had hoped that Storm would lead the Morlocks to the surface but she didn't do anything like that. Instead she had left the Morlocks alone in the sewers and returned to her life as an X-Man. Storm didn't seem to care about the fate of her Molocks and didn't fulfil her tasks as their leader. Half of her people had been dead before the _'goddess'_lowered herself to the 'poor creatures' in the sewers and showed them mercy. She hadn't stopped the massacre. She hadn't lead the Morlocks into the sunlight, but instead left them alone in the darkness. That day Sarah had lost all hope in Storm. The hope was replaced by disappointment. After some time the disappointment in her hearts was chased away by bitterness. She had been so bitter there wasn't any space left for other feelings.

After she had escaped Mikhail's Hill dimension, Sarah, who at that point was the leader of the Gene Nation, had given Storm on the sad anniversary of the mutant massacre, the day of her failure, a chance to redeem herself in Sarah's eyes. She had given the windrider a choice: her life or that of a group of humans. That day Storm had shown her _true_face! The only way to stop the bombs which were connected to the humans was to rip out Marrow's heart. And the 'goddess' had done it. She had ripped out Sarah's heart with her bare hands. Just the fact that Sarah had two hearts because of her constant bone growth had enabled her to survive. Storm had placed the life of a bunch of strangers, humans, over one of her own people who she was supposed to protect! Despite all her talk about peaceful co-existence, she despised the ugliness of the Morlocks like all the other surface dwellers. Only her betrayal was a thousand times worse because she was their leader.

Part of Marrow had been convinced that day that she wouldn't actually do it, that Storm wouldn't tear her heart out of her chest. But she did, and it had extinguished the glowing flame of that candle of hope which a long time ago had burned bright in her chest. But she knew the chance to revive the flame was over.

But despite the hatred she felt toward the X-Men she had helped them during Bastion's attack. Despite all that she was now standing here and had to make a choice. Should she interfere or not? Desperate and unsure she looked at Angel and Abomination.

"Don't listen to him, Marrow. You don't need to hide in the shadows. They might feel familiar and safe, but in fact there is only one thing you really are hiding from in there, and that's lonliness. I know, I once was a monster as well," Warren told her, disregarding the pain as the big green hand squeezed his head. "YOU LIE!" growled Abomination and judging by Warren's groan he had increased the pressure on the head of the blue-skinned mutant. Warren's wings weren't made out of metal anymore, he had regained his original feathered wings, although the blue skin from his transformation to Apocalypse's Horseman of Death remained. But Warren couldn't fight the superior strength of the monster, let alone escape its grip.

Nevertheless Angel kept talking to Sarah. "No…it's true…I really was a monster. Not because of my appearance but rather because…I thought of myself as one. But I suppose…that doesn't matter anymore," he said, taking a deep breath to collect his remaining strength. He continued speaking in a slightly louder and intense voice. "_Run_, Miss…please…I will try to stop him as long as I can. Leave the tunnels…_and don't look back!_ I don't want to die thinking it was all…for _nothing_."

Sarah's eyes widened as she stared at the man in front of her. The idol of her childhood. The angel who had come down from heaven. A mutant whose state was obvious to everyone but instead of disfiguring him, his wings completed him perfectly. Marrow had always wanted to be like him. This man was willing to sacrifice himself for her. This man who had called her _'beautiful'_.

And now he'd ordered her to run, to tuck her tail between her legs and hide. But that was impossible! She wanted to be like him, brave and self-confident, not a monster, but beautiful! She wouldn't run away, she couldn't do that!

Determined, her hand went to her belt and she gripped the most important treasures of her childhood: two metal feathers belonging to Archangel. She had found them on a battlefield the X-Men had left behind, before Sarah and the other Morlocks had been imprisoned by Mikhail in the pocket dimension. She had liked to see her angel fight for freedom. Just because the Morlocks lived underground didn't mean they weren't informed about what was going on. The messages often travelled faster in the sewers than above.

She had always admired Archangel who had came down to free mutants. His grace and deadly precision could be rivalled by only a few. And in the Hill dimension his small missiles had often given her an advantage in a fight. It fitted that Marrow was now saving their original owner with them.

With a movement demonstrating hundreds of hours of training she threw the arrow headed weapons and they found their target like all the hundreds of times before. Abomination cried out as the metal feathers pierced his eyes. Reeling wildly, he let go of Warren, and Marrow quickly made her way to him, helping Warren get back on his feet. "See, I knew it. You are beautiful were it _counts_," he stated as she pulled him up. Angel's bones were hollow like a bird's, which meant he was a lot lighter than he looked. Sarah was able to support him although he nearly had his whole weight on her shoulders.

Marrow didn't want to think about his words at that moment but instead focused on their survival. She ordered Warren to stop talking and concentrate on getting away. The two mutants quickly were out of sight of the green giant behind them. Sarah stopped and listened intensely but wasn't able to hear anything which indicated that Abomination was not following them. Warren took his weight off of Marrow's shoulders and turned to look at her.

"Why did you come and rescue me? Why didn't you just run away?" he asked, looking down at the girl in front of him. Marrow shrugged. "I…I don't know. It's not something I usually do…" she said, uncertainly. "That's okay," Angel soothed. "It takes time to learn how to fly with new wings. Hey, I don't think we've even introduced ourselves. I'm Warren; what's your name?"

"M…Marrow," she finally managed to answer. She didn't know how she should react to his obvious interest. She had lived with the X-Men since the Bastion incident, but all of them either ignored her or didn't trust her. "No…I knew that when I first saw you. What's your _real_name?" Warren specified.

The girl with the pink hair turned her back to him and made her way to one of the tunnel walls next to her. She pulled a bone dagger out of her back and started to scratch something in the wall of the tunnel. "Sarah," she finally answered.. There was a short silence between them which Warren broke. "Sarah" he repeated, as if he was tasting the sound. "That's a beautiful name."

Sarah looked back over her shoulder at him while she turned around, ready to disappear in the shadows of the tunnel behind her. A ghost of a smile was on her lips. "Thank you" she answered quietly. For a long time Warren just stood there and stared at the spot where she had disappeared in the darkness. He hoped she wouldn't decide to stay in the tunnels permenantly. Finally, he turned his eyes to the wall of the tunnel to see what Sarah has craved there. What he saw gave him knew hope that Sarah would return. She had written down the insight she had made this day:

_'Light never dies, not even in monsters'_

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___Feedback is very appreciated._


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